There are many circumstances where it is beneficial to be able to distinguish contact with a human body from contact with other objects or materials. One area where such a capability is especially important is in the guarding of dangerous power equipment. For instance, a system adapted to detect accidental contact between the user of a saw and the saw blade is described in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/225,200, filed Aug. 14, 2000 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/929,426, filed Aug. 13, 2001, which are incorporated herein by reference and are assigned to the assignee of the present application. The system of that application relies on the inherent capacitance of the human body to change the voltage on a saw blade carrying a high frequency signal. The system monitors the voltage on the blade, and when it drops suddenly due to contact with a body, the system signals a high speed brake to stop the blade.
While the above-incorporated applications describe various configurations and features which allow the system to distinguish voltage drops caused by contact between the blade and a person from voltage drops caused by other events, additional configurations are possible as describe below.